July 2006: Hezbollah militants cross into Israel, kill three Israeli soldiers and kidnap two others in a bid to negotiate a prisoner exchange, a demand rebuffed by Israel. Another five Israeli soldiers are killed after the ambush. Israel responds with a naval blockade and by bombing hundreds of targets in Lebanon, including Beirut's airport and Hezbollah's headquarters in southern Beirut. Hezbollah responds with rocket attacks targeting northern Israeli cities. Fighting leaves dozens of Lebanese civilians dead and coincides with a two-week-old Israeli military campaign in Gaza in response to the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants. [emphasis added]

If you click on the picture it opens up a nice NYT graphic on the events...But, of course, nothing is technically wrong with attacking terrorists (I mean, intel is always a better way to undermine terrorist operations than indiscriminate or poorly informed missile attacks that exacerbate the very tensions that produce terrorists in the first place), but my problem isn't with them responding to the kidnappings. Its with the disproportionality/WorldWar3provoking insanity of it

Patton is just one of those movies I've meant to watch but never gotten around to. Like Soulplane.Anyway, sure, we can take the leash off of IDF, or even better, we could kill every Palestinian, Syrian, you know, just annihilate everyone in a 200 mile circle around Israel's borders. It still wouldn't solve the problem of the Arab world detesting Israel and, come to think of it, might even make things worse.On the other hand, if you can neutralize terrorist groups within countries (because remember how civilian casualties don't kill/stop terrorists?), you might actually have a shot at a solution that doesn't kill everyone in the long run.

The Little Green Blog retains all rights to the materials it publishes and requests that work be attributed with a link back to the original page. The opinions expressed herein are solely of the respective author.